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July 2005

Paris

Jeremy Koh
2005-11-05 12:16:49

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as a home and hospital for aged and unwell soldiers. The name is a shortened form of hôpital des invalides, the hospital for invalids and it currently houses a few museums.

Just in front of Les Invalides is the grassy, tree-lined Esplanade des Invalides where there are people playing sports or relaxing. We walked on to the Assemblée Nationale which houses the French Parliament. There is a logo of the 2012 Olympics which Paris is in the running for. Actually such logos are found all over town, including one on the Eiffel Tower. Well, eventually they lost the bid to London.

Anyway, from here we headed back towards the River Seine and landed up in Place de la Concorde which is one of the major squares in Paris. The center of the Place is occupied by a giant Egyptian obelisk which once marked the entrance to Luxor Temple in Egypt. This obelisk is more than 3000 years old! Amazing! However, we didn't linger long because at this point in time, Prema felt that she couldn't hold in her bladder any longer. Thus began the race to find a toilet. At first we tried a hotel, but we were turned away when the staff found out that we weren't guests in the hotel. Next, we tried the subway toilets. Alas, it was closed. You should have seen the look of desperation on Prema's face. Fortunately for her, we finally found a cafe which allowed us to use the toilet. In return, we bought a bottle of water from them.

And so we continued walking along the River Seine, to the Tuileries Gardens which used to be part of Tuileries Palace until it was burnt down and demolished. Today the gardens carry some 63 acres and there's a small funfair within its grounds. Beyond the gardens is the world famous Louvre Museums. As we reached there, we could see that the area was cordoned off and there were guards all around. Apparently there's some event at night. As it is, we couldn't even get close to the ...